Lower Bounds on the Lowest Spectral Gap of Singular Potential Hamiltonians

We analyze Schr?dinger operators whose potential is given by a singular interaction supported on a sub-manifold of the ambient space. Under the assumption that the operator has at least two eigenvalues below its essential spectrum we derive estimates on the lowest spectral gap. In the case where the sub-manifold is a finite curve in two dimensional Euclidean space the size of the gap depends only on the following parameters: the length, diameter and maximal curvature of the curve, a certain parameter measuring the injectivity of the curve embedding, and a compact sub-interval of the open, negative energy half-axis which contains the two lowest eigenvalues. Dedicated to Krešimir Veselić on the occasion of his 65^th birthday. Submitted: February 20, 2006; Accepted: May 8, 2006